David looked around. “Where am I?” he wondered out loud.

From the looks of it, he was in an office. A very small but well-furnished office, about half the size of his office back in church, dimly illuminated by a flickering overhead light. Not the most spacious place to be, a single chair sat in front of him, and before it was a regular office desk, with papers and files scattered all over it.

And on top of these files and papers sat a briefcase.

An open briefcase overflowing with bundles of one hundred dollar bills.

His heart began to pound in his chest. This was it, right? This was the money Roger Wakefield was going to give him, right? It certainly looked like it, considering the man said he was giving a minimum of one million dollars.

He couldn’t help but marvel. What a sight! He had never seen money in abundance like this, and it was beautiful to see. This was certainly money that would turn a man’s life around.

Then a voice, smooth as silk, suddenly whispered into his ear, “Take it, David. It’s all yours. Take it, and all your troubles will disappear.”

Hesitation clouded his thoughts. Yeah, it looked great, but… was it right to take it? Was it the acceptable thing to do?

As he briefly pondered over this, the silky voice returned. “Remember the orphans, David. All those addicts at the rehab center. Your wife and kids, more importantly. Do this for them. Take it.”

He still felt a tint of hesitation. There was still something about all this that didn’t feel right. But the allure triggered by the voice was too strong to resist. Plus it had a point. Many lives would be impacted positively by this money; after all, he had better plans for usage of the money than most of the politicians supposed to be serving the country. Aside his family, many other people would benefit from it.

His hand trembled as he reached for the briefcase, his chest still feeling the pounding effect of his uber-active heart. Beads of sweat slowly formed on his forehead.

“Well, here goes nothing, I guess.”

He reached over and touched the briefcase, a part of him expecting something strange to happen. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, then opened them.

Nothing had happened. Everything was still in place.

He then held one of the bundles of cash, and slowly lifted it up.

“Wow!” he breathed, gently shaking it.

No doubt about it, this was cold, hard cash. Cash that could change a person’s life in an instant. Just this bundle could do so much for him and they that concerned him.

“Yep. These are proper dollar bills,” he said to himself, already beginning to imagine what he could do with that money alone. “Now there’s so much I can finally get accompli-“

A strange blowing sound cut him off.

He looked around in a panic. “What was that?” he wondered. The windows weren’t open, so where did that gust of wind come from?

Suddenly, the air around him turned icy cold.

He looked around nervously.

Still, there was nothing strange in the office, but this unsettling chill had filled the room. One that suddenly had dread creeping into his heart. He looked at the bundle of cash in his hand, and trembled a bit.

“Wait. M-m-maybe this wasn’t a good idea-“

Another strange sound cut him off and caused him to look up.

The overhead light suddenly flickered uncontrollably, then went off, causing the room to go dark. Even in that darkness, though, his pupils could perceive some activity. What they beheld filled him with dread.

The office walls seemed to be disintegrating, as they cracked and bled with an eerie darkness, swallowing the room in malevolence. He could virtually sense his blood run cold at that sight.

“Dear Lord, what is going on?” he asked aloud, taking a few steps back and dropping the bundle back in the briefcase. This was extremely creepy, and to say that he was feeling highly uncomfortable would be a major understatement.

He looked down at the table where the briefcase lay, and his stomach immediately churned.

“Jesus!”

What he had just seen was tame compared to what his eyes were now seeing.

The money within the briefcase had strangely writhed and transformed into what looked like life-sized grotesque, faceless figures, right before his eyes. He trembled in terror and stepped back as they stepped out of the briefcase.

For someone who despised horror movies and had banned them from the Mensah-Jones household, this was as close to a horror movie as he could get, and this was certainly way more terrifying than watching it.

“I need to get out of here!” David cried as he turned to run. The sight of these spectral forms of faceless figures were nothing short of petrifying, to say the least. The quicker he got out of that office, the better for him.

Turning, however, he realized to his utter shock: he was no longer in the office.

The brief familiar surroundings had weirdly transformed into what looked like a menacing, labyrinthine realm, and behind him was now a dark path instead of what he assumed would be the door.

Now facing the path, he turned to look behind. The eerie figures drew ever closer, hissing like angry cats as they approached him, with their bony-looking hands raised, ready to grab him and drag him to wherever they came from.

“Fool!”

“Scoundrel!”

“Scumbag!”

If those sinister hisses weren’t enough to get his feet moving, those freakish-sounding voices insulting him were more than enough. David began to run in the direction of the path, frightened to the bone.

“Oh God, get me out of here! Please, get me out of here!” he cried as he followed the path, hoping to get to an exit.

The path took a right turn, which he followed. Then another right turn.

As he continued to run on this path, he hoped for a second that this might just be the way to the exit. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered, his feet moving briskly and willing the next few steps to lead to a door or an open path…

… until he ran straight into a wall.

A dead end.

“No-no-no-no-noooooo!” he moaned loudly, pounding the wall with his fists. “Noooo! This can’t be, this can’t be!”

The hissing sounds still behind him, his heart pounded harder than ever. Those strange entities were still around, and only God knew what kind of harm they would inflict upon him if they got close-

“Oh, thank God, there’s a way here!” he cried out in relief. Having felt his way on the walls, he encountered a space that led to another path. As he changed course, the further he moved on that path, the fainter the hissing sounds grew.

“This must be some maze or something,” he said to himself. “Oh, Heavenly Father, please help me find my way out. Please…”

As he continued to run, hoping against hope that he’d find the exit, the walls sometimes seemed like they were ready to close in on him, each step echoing with his pounding heartbeat.

“Please don’t close in on me! Please don’t close in on me!!” he silently prayed as the claustrophobic vibe kicked in. The last thing he needed was for them to actually close in; this discomfiting darkness was bad enough.

Still racing through this most perplex labyrinth, warped, ghostly voices began to fill the air, their accusatory whispers flooding his ears.

“You’re an absolute disappointment, Daddy!” one voice hissed.

“I can’t believe you’d stoop this low, Reverend. I thought you were a man of integrity,” another sneered.

“You will burn in hell for this!” a third figure warned, its voice a chilling echo.

David shook his head as tears filled his eyes while he trudged on. Those voices were horrible distortions of people he knew too well. His middle son Mark, Pastor Gilbert and his father.

“I shouldn’t have touched that briefcase. I shouldn’t have touched it…”

Moving on, he could now see some projections. Visual pictures of people who had once stood where he stood, now tormented by regret and haunted by their past decisions.

In one corner, a man who had taken a bribe to secure a promotion cowered in fear as his family turned their backs on him. In another, a woman who had compromised her principles for wealth found herself drowning in a sea of loneliness and self-loathing.

A chill ran down David’s spine as he observed them. The people looked so miserable, so glum, so remorseful of the acts that put them in that situation to begin with.

In another strange twist, he stumbled upon a mirror on the side, and as he gazed into it, he saw his own reflection.

Well, not exactly his exact reflection. The David staring back at him was a distorted and warped version of him, looking pretty wretched and sulky. The reflection sneered back at him, looking as angry as could be.

“This is who you’ll become,” the reflection whispered in a haunting tone. “A disappointment to your family. A disgrace to your embarrassment to the body of Christ. You’ll become a byword and a reproach…”

As the reflection continued to speak, those hissing sounds returned. David turned, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on edge as those spectral figures hovered around him, their hisses louder than before.

David could feel his bones trembling with fear. From the awful words of this twisted reflection of his to the nasty beings surrounding him. Every second came with a gut-wrenching punch to his soul.

Tears began to stream down his face as the distorted reflection’s voice grew louder.

“Sika will despise you and think lowly of you! Your assistant pastors will scorn you! The nation will mock you…”

“I’m sorry, please! I’m sorry!” David wailed, his face full of tears at this point. “I never should have taken it. I’m sorry, forgive me, please!”

“… YOU’LL BECOME A NOTHING! A FOOL! A JOKE! YOU’LL BE NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHINGGGGG!”

In that moment, the mirror, the distorted reflection and all the haunting figures around him suddenly vanished into thin air. As David screamed in panic at the sudden disappearances, the labyrinth seemed to collapse, and before he knew it, he found himself standing at the edge of an endless abyss.

Fear gripped him as he peered into the depths. It looked bottomless and hollow. 

Shivering like he had been dipped in ice water, he looked around.

No space to step away to safety.

He was stuck on the edge. One wrong move, and it would be a long way down that hole to wherever it led.

“Down you go!”

Before he could wonder who uttered those words, a sharp force from behind shoved him, and down he went, plummeting into the horrifying depths.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

With a gasp, he jolted awake, drenched in sweat. His heart pounded in his chest, and his mind was reeling from the intensity of the nightmare.

“God have mercy!” he whispered to himself, breathing hard. Never had he had a dream this vividly frightening. This was definitely the nightmare to end all nightmares.

As he sat there, trying his best to catch his breath and keep Sika from waking up, he knew, however, that this was more than just a dream; it was a powerful warning, a glimpse into the abyss that awaited him if he chose the path of accepting that offer.

My goodness!! What a terrifying experience that was for David! The scariest nightmare you’ll ever experience…